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What is described in the article isn't sexism - it's fear. Fear of being labeled as a sexist.

rocqua 6y ago
Its treating people different based on gender. It depends very much on semantics whether you call that sexism. It is certainly not the form of sexism that people these days are most worried about.
- tolbish 6y ago
  That would be discrimination based on sex, but no it would not be sexist in this case. Now if, for example, he treated people based on gender because he felt women belong in the kitchen, then that would be both sexist and discriminatory. The words sexism/racism often get confused with discrimination.
  - awb 6y ago
    > The words sexism/racism often get confused with discrimination. Oxford definition of “sexism” via Google: > prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex The definition of sexism seems to include discrimination. What definition are you using?
    - Closi 6y ago
      The problem is how politically charged the word 'sexist' is. I'm aware that the boring unemotional dictionary definition is treating someone differently on the basis of gender, but in reality if a guy is hanging out in a women's toilet its not generally seen as sexist/sexism to ask him to leave (even though this is discrimination on the basis of sex). So labelling anything where two genders are treated differently as 'sexism' or 'sexist' I don't think actually matches the modern usage of the word. I think the difference is it's usually used in a negative connotation and the type of discrimination is seen as non-acceptable - for instance most people wouldn't call a girl-band or boy-band sexist because they select their members based on gender, while most would call an employer sexist if they had a generic business and tried to segregate their teams into single-gender teams. Most people still don't have a problem with boy bands (i.e. a male-only-team in a music workplace), thus not sexist, but do have a problem with male-only-teams in other workplaces, thus sexist.
      - awb 6y ago
        > if a guy is hanging out in a women's toilet its not generally seen as sexist/sexism to ask him to leave (even though this is discrimination on the basis of sex) Enforcing a rule isn’t discrimination. The rule itself may or may not be discrimination. > Most people still don't have a problem with boy bands (i.e. a male-only-team in a music workplace), thus not sexist, but do have a problem with male-only-teams in other workplaces, thus sexist. They get the label “boy band” after they form. If they were a mixed gender group (like a workplace) and kicked out a talented female musician because they wanted to be male-only, that would be sexist.
        Closi 6y ago
        I don’t remember seeing rules in the dictionary definition, and I also struggle to believe that something can’t be sexist/sexism if the laws allow it. I think in the western world we would say that another country banning women from driving would be an example of sexism, albeit within the laws of the country. Also, I hate to break the illusion for you, but boy bands are often planned as such and are manufactured by the record labels. It’s not a coincidence, for example, that the spice girls are all girls - that’s because they only auditioned girls because they were making the spice girls.
    - Nexxxeh 6y ago
      Not answering for GP, but some people believe you cannot be sexist against men, or racist against white people.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    There's no confusion, just a difference in upbringing. I was raised being told that racism was discrimination due to race and sexism was discrimination due to sex. I was told that our goal should be to be blind to such attributes in a professional setting. There were many in my age group that were raised the same.
    - visarga 6y ago
      > I was told that our goal should be to be blind to such attributes The woke reactions would be like: It’s really saying, "I don’t really see what makes you you". We want you to see the benefit of the diversity people bring to the table. Being colour-blind used to be woke, now it's whitewashing. My comment: apparently they need the attributes to define the identity they rally around. You can't not see them anymore because it is interpreted as ignoring their identity.
  - rocqua 6y ago
    I see this move towards redefining sexism and racism to be the prevalent form of negative sex or race based discrimination, instead of all forms of discrimination. That's why I stated it is a semantic discussion. On the one hand, I think this redefining is good. Because when we talk about the problems of racism and sexism, the prevalent form of negative discrimination (so in the west, racism by white people, and sexism by males) are what we tend to mean. On the other hand, other forms of discrimination also happen, and we need words to describe them. Racism and sexism used to describe that, but by now such describing tends to feel bad. It tends to feel like drawing an equivalence between e.g. a white person not being able to use the N-word being 'just as bad' as the oppression faced by black people in America. I feel we need separate words for both the systemic (non intentional) oppression of people by sex and gender. And discrimination based on sex and gender in general. Originally racism and sexism used to describe the latter. Slowly we are moving towards having it mean the former, without having new words for the latter. Ideally wish we had just come up with new words for the latter. But that would have lost some of the power that comes from calling someone a racist or a sexist. In conclusion, semantics matter, and are hard.
    - belorn 6y ago
      > a white person not being able to use the N-word being If that is what comes to mind when people talk about white discrimination, then there is a large disconnect in the discussion when talking about the semantic meaning of sexism and racism. If two people apply to a university and the critical distinction why one got excluded is race, then that is a negative discrimination. If two people are accused of identifical crime and the the critical distinction why one got a harsher sentence is race, then that is negative discrimination. If two people are illegally demonstrating on the street and one get violently assaulted for doing so, and the critical distinction is race, then that is negative discrimination. Some of that negative discrimination harms white people, some black people, some both in different circumstances, and there is many more situation where such discrimination occurs. Same in regard to gender.
- kevincox 6y ago
  It isn't directly treating people different based on gender. It is treating people differently based on the damage that they can do to you. Generally a woman accusing you of being sexist is will do more damage than a man doing the same (not universally, but usually). So while the outcome is equivalent the decision is based on the very real threat, not the gender.
awb 6y ago
It’s probably both. The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Regardless of how rational this fear is, they are stereotyping new female founders they’re meeting for the first time based on what an X% of other female founder’s have done in the past. For the men, it’s probably a risk/reward calculation. Keep your head down and be polite and have ~0% chance of being accused of sexism. Or, speak up and maybe ruffle some feathers and have a ~X% chance of being accused of sexism. You can see the problem on both sides of the equation, but withholding advice based on gender alone does meet the definition of sexism, regardless of the intentions of self-protection rather than hate.
- julianmarq 6y ago
  I don't know the solution to this problem, but I do think that turning it into a Morton's fork ("men are sexist regardless of whether they speak or not") is not it. Instead of playing semantics by saying that "it is technically sexism" (and I'm not saying I agree with whether it actually is or not), we could choose to at least stop phrasing the situation like that.
  - awb 6y ago
    You’re not sexist if you give honest feedback to both genders. But you are at risk of being falsely labeled sexist if you do. It’s a bad situation I agree, but we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled.
    - julianmarq 6y ago
      > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled. But we can't fix it by doing otherwise—asking people to stop being "overly" cautious—either. Another comment put it best: that solution is akin to asking people to self-sacrifice, except that at the very least jumping on a grenade gets you a medal; in this case, it gets you vilification.
      - awb 6y ago
godelski 6y ago
Fear based actions can still be sexist though. We're talking about treating people different based on their sex. Let's draw a parallel. Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action. Sure, not burning a cross in their lawn racist, but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum). I would argue that people that do this do so because they are afraid of said black person. Yes, their action is caused by fear, but their fear is caused by racism (i.e. they view a black person as being more likely to be dangerous than a person of another race). Looping back, I believe you are right that these decisions are fear based, but it is fear that women are out to get you, which is the sexist part. In reality it does not appear that women are more out to get you than men are. Though we likely have a perception bias that they are because of social media. There's the double edged sword of awareness. It can help you solve a problem but it can also increase the problem because it can make you blind to the root issues. I think this brings us to problems with social media or more precisely sensationalism (which is amplified in social media but far from the only platform that encourages this). These cases are more visible and gives us a selection bias. But I guess we have to encourage good faith discussions (which is a rule on HN btw) through media, which is rather difficult to do at a cultural level. And we don't want to entirely kill sensationalism either because topics going viral has a lot of utility (such as that more women are being open about the abuse that they've received. Yes, this does lead to a higher number of false accusations, but they still are a very small percentage of accusations). It's a really difficult problem but I think encouraging good faith arguments, being kind to one another, patience, and allowing for mistakes are a necessary step to be able to solve this entire issue (which I'm not going to pretend to have real answers). Particularly I think the last component is essential because we need to recognize that not everyone learns the same lessons. If we're going to say things like "everyone is racist" or "everyone is sexist" we have to also allow people to safely make mistakes and importantly be given the opportunity change/fix their behavior. I personally believe if people are not given this opportunity they double down on their ways. It is a coping mechanism because no one wants to be the bad guy.
- to1y 6y ago
  So you're a sexist if you do, you're a sexist if you don't?
csense 6y ago
You're treating women differently based on their gender. That's literally sexism. What's different is the moral color of the sexism. If Eric treats women differently in his workplace because he thinks they should be raising babies, not writing code, our cultural norms say Eric is a Bad Person. Now suppose Bob genuinely believes women and men should have equal opportunities and career paths in the workplace. But Bob treats women differently in his workplace because he's afraid of a false accusation that ends up with him getting sued, fired, having his reputation ruined, etc. Then we'd say that Bob isn't a bad person. Or at the very least, he's not anywhere near as bad as Eric. He's just trying to do his best to protect himself from a social system he doesn't control, that will grind him up if he gets caught in its gears. If you take the definition of "sexism" to be "treating people differently based on their gender," the case against Bob is airtight. Bob's literally a sexist: He treats women differently because of gender. I think the reason you're trying to argue Bob's not a sexist is because the word "sexist" itself is normative. Sexists are Bad People like Eric. Bob's not a Bad Person, so we shouldn't use the word "sexist" to describe him, because "sexist" has a moral color -- part of the meaning of the label is that you're a Bad Person. In other words, if you say Bob's not a sexist, you must be taking your definition of "sexist" to be something else. Treating women differently for a certain kind of reason. With this more nuanced definition of "sexist," it's possible that Eric's a sexist and Bob is not, even if their actual actions toward women are the same. To properly describe what Bob is, you might need to create a new word to describe someone who treats women differently, but in a morally neutral way (or at least a lighter shade of grey). Racism might also benefit from having a term that fills this linguistic / conceptual niche. ("Systemic racism" might have fit the bill at one time, but I think that particular term has become colored -- pun intended -- by a moral connotation.)
- Thorentis 6y ago
  So if I work in a department store, and I direct the women to the lady's clothing section, and the men to the men's clothing section, I am a sexist? Or if I'm a hairdresser, and I charge women the price of a women's cut, and men the price of a men's cut, then I'm a sexist? Your black and white definition is nothing other than an attempt to double-down on calling more things sexist than they actually are. It does not pass the common sense test. Sexism always has negative connotations. If the person is not viewed as a bad person (as you say) for their actions, then their actions were not sexist.

Its treating people different based on gender. It depends very much on semantics whether you call that sexism. It is certainly not the form of sexism that people these days are most worried about.

tolbish 6y ago
That would be discrimination based on sex, but no it would not be sexist in this case. Now if, for example, he treated people based on gender because he felt women belong in the kitchen, then that would be both sexist and discriminatory. The words sexism/racism often get confused with discrimination.
- awb 6y ago
  > The words sexism/racism often get confused with discrimination. Oxford definition of “sexism” via Google: > prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex The definition of sexism seems to include discrimination. What definition are you using?
  - Closi 6y ago
    The problem is how politically charged the word 'sexist' is. I'm aware that the boring unemotional dictionary definition is treating someone differently on the basis of gender, but in reality if a guy is hanging out in a women's toilet its not generally seen as sexist/sexism to ask him to leave (even though this is discrimination on the basis of sex). So labelling anything where two genders are treated differently as 'sexism' or 'sexist' I don't think actually matches the modern usage of the word. I think the difference is it's usually used in a negative connotation and the type of discrimination is seen as non-acceptable - for instance most people wouldn't call a girl-band or boy-band sexist because they select their members based on gender, while most would call an employer sexist if they had a generic business and tried to segregate their teams into single-gender teams. Most people still don't have a problem with boy bands (i.e. a male-only-team in a music workplace), thus not sexist, but do have a problem with male-only-teams in other workplaces, thus sexist.
    - awb 6y ago
      > if a guy is hanging out in a women's toilet its not generally seen as sexist/sexism to ask him to leave (even though this is discrimination on the basis of sex) Enforcing a rule isn’t discrimination. The rule itself may or may not be discrimination. > Most people still don't have a problem with boy bands (i.e. a male-only-team in a music workplace), thus not sexist, but do have a problem with male-only-teams in other workplaces, thus sexist. They get the label “boy band” after they form. If they were a mixed gender group (like a workplace) and kicked out a talented female musician because they wanted to be male-only, that would be sexist.
      - Closi 6y ago
        I don’t remember seeing rules in the dictionary definition, and I also struggle to believe that something can’t be sexist/sexism if the laws allow it. I think in the western world we would say that another country banning women from driving would be an example of sexism, albeit within the laws of the country. Also, I hate to break the illusion for you, but boy bands are often planned as such and are manufactured by the record labels. It’s not a coincidence, for example, that the spice girls are all girls - that’s because they only auditioned girls because they were making the spice girls.
  - Nexxxeh 6y ago
    Not answering for GP, but some people believe you cannot be sexist against men, or racist against white people.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  There's no confusion, just a difference in upbringing. I was raised being told that racism was discrimination due to race and sexism was discrimination due to sex. I was told that our goal should be to be blind to such attributes in a professional setting. There were many in my age group that were raised the same.
  - visarga 6y ago
    > I was told that our goal should be to be blind to such attributes The woke reactions would be like: It’s really saying, "I don’t really see what makes you you". We want you to see the benefit of the diversity people bring to the table. Being colour-blind used to be woke, now it's whitewashing. My comment: apparently they need the attributes to define the identity they rally around. You can't not see them anymore because it is interpreted as ignoring their identity.
- rocqua 6y ago
  I see this move towards redefining sexism and racism to be the prevalent form of negative sex or race based discrimination, instead of all forms of discrimination. That's why I stated it is a semantic discussion. On the one hand, I think this redefining is good. Because when we talk about the problems of racism and sexism, the prevalent form of negative discrimination (so in the west, racism by white people, and sexism by males) are what we tend to mean. On the other hand, other forms of discrimination also happen, and we need words to describe them. Racism and sexism used to describe that, but by now such describing tends to feel bad. It tends to feel like drawing an equivalence between e.g. a white person not being able to use the N-word being 'just as bad' as the oppression faced by black people in America. I feel we need separate words for both the systemic (non intentional) oppression of people by sex and gender. And discrimination based on sex and gender in general. Originally racism and sexism used to describe the latter. Slowly we are moving towards having it mean the former, without having new words for the latter. Ideally wish we had just come up with new words for the latter. But that would have lost some of the power that comes from calling someone a racist or a sexist. In conclusion, semantics matter, and are hard.
  - belorn 6y ago
    > a white person not being able to use the N-word being If that is what comes to mind when people talk about white discrimination, then there is a large disconnect in the discussion when talking about the semantic meaning of sexism and racism. If two people apply to a university and the critical distinction why one got excluded is race, then that is a negative discrimination. If two people are accused of identifical crime and the the critical distinction why one got a harsher sentence is race, then that is negative discrimination. If two people are illegally demonstrating on the street and one get violently assaulted for doing so, and the critical distinction is race, then that is negative discrimination. Some of that negative discrimination harms white people, some black people, some both in different circumstances, and there is many more situation where such discrimination occurs. Same in regard to gender.
kevincox 6y ago
It isn't directly treating people different based on gender. It is treating people differently based on the damage that they can do to you. Generally a woman accusing you of being sexist is will do more damage than a man doing the same (not universally, but usually). So while the outcome is equivalent the decision is based on the very real threat, not the gender.

awb 6y ago

It’s probably both. The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Regardless of how rational this fear is, they are stereotyping new female founders they’re meeting for the first time based on what an X% of other female founder’s have done in the past. For the men, it’s probably a risk/reward calculation. Keep your head down and be polite and have ~0% chance of being accused of sexism. Or, speak up and maybe ruffle some feathers and have a ~X% chance of being accused of sexism. You can see the problem on both sides of the equation, but withholding advice based on gender alone does meet the definition of sexism, regardless of the intentions of self-protection rather than hate.

julianmarq 6y ago
I don't know the solution to this problem, but I do think that turning it into a Morton's fork ("men are sexist regardless of whether they speak or not") is not it. Instead of playing semantics by saying that "it is technically sexism" (and I'm not saying I agree with whether it actually is or not), we could choose to at least stop phrasing the situation like that.
- awb 6y ago
  You’re not sexist if you give honest feedback to both genders. But you are at risk of being falsely labeled sexist if you do. It’s a bad situation I agree, but we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled.
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled. But we can't fix it by doing otherwise—asking people to stop being "overly" cautious—either. Another comment put it best: that solution is akin to asking people to self-sacrifice, except that at the very least jumping on a grenade gets you a medal; in this case, it gets you vilification.
    - awb 6y ago

godelski 6y ago

Fear based actions can still be sexist though. We're talking about treating people different based on their sex. Let's draw a parallel. Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action. Sure, not burning a cross in their lawn racist, but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum). I would argue that people that do this do so because they are afraid of said black person. Yes, their action is caused by fear, but their fear is caused by racism (i.e. they view a black person as being more likely to be dangerous than a person of another race). Looping back, I believe you are right that these decisions are fear based, but it is fear that women are out to get you, which is the sexist part. In reality it does not appear that women are more out to get you than men are. Though we likely have a perception bias that they are because of social media. There's the double edged sword of awareness. It can help you solve a problem but it can also increase the problem because it can make you blind to the root issues. I think this brings us to problems with social media or more precisely sensationalism (which is amplified in social media but far from the only platform that encourages this). These cases are more visible and gives us a selection bias. But I guess we have to encourage good faith discussions (which is a rule on HN btw) through media, which is rather difficult to do at a cultural level. And we don't want to entirely kill sensationalism either because topics going viral has a lot of utility (such as that more women are being open about the abuse that they've received. Yes, this does lead to a higher number of false accusations, but they still are a very small percentage of accusations). It's a really difficult problem but I think encouraging good faith arguments, being kind to one another, patience, and allowing for mistakes are a necessary step to be able to solve this entire issue (which I'm not going to pretend to have real answers). Particularly I think the last component is essential because we need to recognize that not everyone learns the same lessons. If we're going to say things like "everyone is racist" or "everyone is sexist" we have to also allow people to safely make mistakes and importantly be given the opportunity change/fix their behavior. I personally believe if people are not given this opportunity they double down on their ways. It is a coping mechanism because no one wants to be the bad guy.

to1y 6y ago
So you're a sexist if you do, you're a sexist if you don't?

csense 6y ago

You're treating women differently based on their gender. That's literally sexism. What's different is the moral color of the sexism. If Eric treats women differently in his workplace because he thinks they should be raising babies, not writing code, our cultural norms say Eric is a Bad Person. Now suppose Bob genuinely believes women and men should have equal opportunities and career paths in the workplace. But Bob treats women differently in his workplace because he's afraid of a false accusation that ends up with him getting sued, fired, having his reputation ruined, etc. Then we'd say that Bob isn't a bad person. Or at the very least, he's not anywhere near as bad as Eric. He's just trying to do his best to protect himself from a social system he doesn't control, that will grind him up if he gets caught in its gears. If you take the definition of "sexism" to be "treating people differently based on their gender," the case against Bob is airtight. Bob's literally a sexist: He treats women differently because of gender. I think the reason you're trying to argue Bob's not a sexist is because the word "sexist" itself is normative. Sexists are Bad People like Eric. Bob's not a Bad Person, so we shouldn't use the word "sexist" to describe him, because "sexist" has a moral color -- part of the meaning of the label is that you're a Bad Person. In other words, if you say Bob's not a sexist, you must be taking your definition of "sexist" to be something else. Treating women differently for a certain kind of reason. With this more nuanced definition of "sexist," it's possible that Eric's a sexist and Bob is not, even if their actual actions toward women are the same. To properly describe what Bob is, you might need to create a new word to describe someone who treats women differently, but in a morally neutral way (or at least a lighter shade of grey). Racism might also benefit from having a term that fills this linguistic / conceptual niche. ("Systemic racism" might have fit the bill at one time, but I think that particular term has become colored -- pun intended -- by a moral connotation.)

Thorentis 6y ago
So if I work in a department store, and I direct the women to the lady's clothing section, and the men to the men's clothing section, I am a sexist? Or if I'm a hairdresser, and I charge women the price of a women's cut, and men the price of a men's cut, then I'm a sexist? Your black and white definition is nothing other than an attempt to double-down on calling more things sexist than they actually are. It does not pass the common sense test. Sexism always has negative connotations. If the person is not viewed as a bad person (as you say) for their actions, then their actions were not sexist.